Around The Horn

It was Sunday baseball at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn before 33,813, standing room only. Yankees against Dodgers, Game Four, 1941 World Series, the first for Brooklyn in 21 years.

The first ball was thrown out by New York Mayor LaGuardia. Everyone settled in on that summer-like day to watch the match-up of Brooklyn’s Kirby Higbe and New York’s Atley Donald in the first Subway Series between the two teams.

The game moved to the ninth inning with the Brooks clinging to a 4-3 lead. Higbe and Donald were long gone. In their place were Brooklyn’s Hugh Casey and Yankee reliever Johnny Murphy.

The burly Casey got Johnny Sturm and Red Rolfe on ground balls. That made it seven in a row for him. Tommy Henrich was next. The count ran full.

“Casey goes into the windup,” Mel Allen described it. “Around comes the right arm, in comes the pitch. A swing by Henrich . . . he swings and misses, strike three! But the ball gets away from Mickey Owen. It’s rolling back to the screen. Tommy Henrich races down toward first base. He makes it safely. And the Yankees are still alive with Joe DiMaggio coming up to bat.”

That fabled call by Allen succinctly and dramatically described what happened. Tommy Henrich recalled: “That ball broke like no curve I’d ever seen Casey throw. As I start to swing, I think, ‘No good. Hold up.’ That thing broke so sharp, though, that as I tried to hold up, my mind said, ‘He might have trouble with it.’”

Owen, who ironically, that season, set the National League record for 476 consecutive errorless chances accepted by a catcher while setting a Dodger season record by fielding .995, was the goat.

There were those who thought the game was over when Henrich swung and apparently struck out on the Casey 3-2 pitch. A few Yankee players were headed down the runway to their locker room. Police, positioned in the Dodger dugout, were out on the field prepared to handle crowd control. The police, it was later claimed,were an issue for Owen trying to come up with the passed ball.

A shaken Casey was roughed up for four runs. The Yankees wound up beating the stunned Dodgers,7-4. The next day a four hitter by Tiny Bonham gave the Yankees a 3-1 victory and the world championship again.

For the Dodgers, it was “Wait ’til Next Year” again.

Harvey Frommer is now in his 32nd consecutive year of writing sports books. He is the author of 38 sports books, including the classics: “New York City Baseball,” “Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,” “Rickey and Robinson,” “A Yankee Century,” and Red Sox Vs. Yankees: The Great Rivalry” (with Frederic J. Frommer). His newest efforts are OLD TIME BASEBALL and WHERE HAVE ALL THE RED SOX GONE? He is now at work on the definitive book on the 1927 Yankees to be published in 2007.

Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

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